Free The Devil's Horn by David L. Robbins Page B

union’s?
    “You know, it does beat the living a poor bastard lasher can make in the bottom of a mine.”
    “True. But how did you do it?”
    “Two answers. First, I played cricket for the company team.”
    “I assume you were quite good at that, as well.”
    “My dear, I was very good. It got me the attention of the mine’s managers. They sent me to engineering school in Cornwall.”
    “And?”
    “And when I returned, I married the boss’s daughter.”
    The woman’s smile registered that she rather liked this answer.
    Allyn addressed the three miners.
    “Thank you, gentlemen, I can see myself out.”
    The men walked off without ceremony, back to their tasks for the rich man who’d dismissed them. The woman removed her hard hat. Her hair was a gentle brown shade, streaked with gold by the light of the lone bulb. She ran a jeweled hand across her crown, an act of display, before covering it with the hard hat.
    “You’re one of my attorneys, aren’t you?”
    She nodded, the leopard on her helmet dipped at Allyn.
    “I am.”
    “Were you on the negotiating team?”
    “I was.”
    “Then you did excellent work. It feels good to be back.”
    Allyn flattened a hand to usher her before him.
    “We should celebrate.”

    He knotted his tie in the mirror and straightened his silver hair with her brush. Allyn was conscious of being quiet but not furtive. He wasn’t sneaking away, just letting her sleep.
    He left five thousand rand from his money clip on the dresser. On hotel stationery he penned a note to leave with the money: You didn’t ask for this, so please accept it . This would help define their relationship if they encountered each other again, in the office or socially in Pretoria. Allyn slipped out the door. In the lobby, the concierge arranged for a taxi.

    Yesterday’s mail included a note of condolence from the wife of Zimbabwe’s president, sent two weeks after the funeral. Allyn carried the letter onto the veranda, where Centurion Lake reflected the late day’s amber light. The president’s wife had been a great friend to Eva during Allyn’s affluent years in Zimbabwe. Her note was handwritten and short, not really heartfelt, the sort of message that said, “I have done what was proper and now good-bye.” Allyn dropped the note in a bin. The president himself had done better; he’d called Allyn personally. They spoke warmly for ten minutes with no enmity of the past, like two old pirates plying different waters.
    Allyn sat outside for the hour of sundown with nothing in his hands, not a gin or newspaper, no one to bring these to him. The maid had been in the house the days while he’d been gone to the office, then the mine. Funny about maids, how they left no evidence of themselves but the absolute lack of evidence.
    The big house would begin to feel empty soon. Eva’s clothes needed to be given away, her papers arranged and sent to her sisters, some memento photos to their boy who’d gone back to London a day after the funeral. Not much else needed doing.
    Below the veranda, fireflies blinked. The other mansions of Centurion Lake began to glow, homey and gilded. Though they were clustered around the water with him, they felt remote, houses he’d not been in, neighbors he didn’t know well. Eva had. His own home remained lightless. He did not go inside to turn on lamps or the television; he cooked nothing. Allyn did no chore Eva would have done, and the result was darkness.
    When the doorbell rang he did not at first discern it from the big chiming clock in the stairwell. The bells sounded again, and when he could not call for his wife to get the door, Allyn decided that he would find live-in help.
    He stepped inside from the veranda, clicking on a table lamp beside the expansive leather sofa Eva never liked. She said it held onto too much temperature, either cool or warm, and sitting on it was like sitting on a living thing. Allyn walked far from the lamp’s throw, without turning on