Free And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon

his passenger. “I’ll take the cold, thank you. Ackey poisoning is a very unpleasant business. Terrible tummy-ache, y’know, vomiting and choking. Pretty quick, though, if you can’t get to a stomach pump.”
    â€œJeff,” she said softly, “I simply cannot be frightened. Not by anything.”
    â€œI think I realized that some time ago,” said Jeff Cotrell. “You’re well-armed, Brunhilde. It would be difficult to imagine you in a situation where you couldn’t use your quick mind, or your strength, or—”
    She smiled widely, so that he saw the pointed teeth, and arched her back. “—or any other of my attributes,” she finished for him. He flushed. “You’re so right,” she added. “Hence I have nothing to fear, ever.”
    They took an unpaved side road just outside Half-Way Tree, and bumped along it for half a mile until they came to a crossroads. Under a giant tamarind tree was the shop. It boasted a sign: YEM FOONG.
Ginger Beer—Yard goods
. CATERER TO HIS HONOR THE GOVERNOR.
    â€œThe sign is new,” said Brunhilde.
    â€œVery observant of you,” said Cotrell, turning into the shop’s yard. “Some of the people, you see, are very superstitious and wouldn’t go into a shop if it bore a dead man’s name. They’d be afraid he’d wait on them.”
    â€œI shall be looking,” she said, “for the culture and intelligence you tell me I’ll find here.”
    â€œI have said you’re observant,” he countered, opening the doorfor her. She laid a hand on his arm.
    â€œJeff …”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIf I help you catch your man, will you do me a favor?”
    â€œBut of course. Anything I can.”
    â€œYou can. I want to go to the hanging.”
    â€œYou want—”
    â€œJeff, you promised.”
    â€œVery well,” he said.
    They walked up the short path and entered the shop, blinking the sunlight out of their eyes. It was cool and dim inside. There were no show-windows. The packed-earth walls were thick and the windows small. Along one wall ran a board counter, behind which were bolts of cotton, canned goods, bottles of rum, and fruit juices, racked on shelves.
    There were a couple of battered tables and some chairs out on the packed-earth floor, and in the corner was a water-box filled with ice and small stone bottles of ginger-beer, cane-juice, ale, and bright-colored, sticky-sweet soft drinks.
    â€œMr. Cotrell, sir. Most welcome. This place is entirely yours.”
    Yem Foong was tiny, wizened, completely bald. He wore a long black linen jacket which buttoned up to its stiff, round collar by a series of black silk frogs. His clothes were pressed and smooth, and so were his face and his voice.
    â€œFoong! So glad to see you again, old fellow. This is Miss Moot, of whom I have spoken to you. She has, she tells me, a high regard for the Jamaican cuisine.”
    Brunhilde inclined her head and extended her hand. But already Yem Foong had folded his own and was bowing deeply.
    â€œA presence such as yours begins to compensate for the emptiness of this unfortunate house.”
    â€œYes, I had heard about your brother,” said Brunhilde huskily. “I can’t tell you all I feel.”
    â€œYou have told me,” said Yem, graciously. “Now, if you will step this way, what little I have been able to prepare for you is ready.”
    They went through the rear door. A low table was set in the innerroom, and Brunhilde stopped momentarily at sight of it. It was laid with exquisite Spode, and Jensen silver. A single spray of jasmine lay in a squat crystal bowl in the center of the table.
    They seated themselves. Brunhilde looked from end to end of the table, admiringly, and at the tapestried wall facing her, and around and down to the far corner of the room, where there was a fresh-dug hole about a yard square in the earthen floor. On