Helen McCloy

by Minotaur Country

She nodded.

  “Then you’d better notify your bank the first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve got a blank check of yours and a signature of yours to copy. Quite a temptation to forgery.”

  He closed his notebook. He had turned toward the door when a second thought struck him. He turned back to Tash again.

  “Did they take anything else besides the wallet?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Better check.”

  She emptied the contents of her bag on the counter beside the cashier’s desk. Credit cards, driver’s license, car registration, press card, keys, pen, address book, coin purse, tissues . . .

  “I have a feeling something’s missing,” she said. “But I just can’t think what it is.”

  “You may think of it by tomorrow. If you do, you can tell them at the station house.”

  Now the policeman was gone, everyone gathered around Tash. Did she know there was a cut on her cheekbone? The man who struck her must have worn a ring. The casfrier reached under the counter, brought out a first aid kit, put iodine and a Band Aid on the cheek bone. Did she need money for bus fare home?

  Gordon stepped into the circle. “I’m driving her home.”

  “What about my car?” said Tash.

  “Leave it here for tonight.”

  It was a relief to get away from the crowd with its open sympathy and curiosity and its furtive delight in shock and sensation.

  She wondered how long her hands had been shaky and her knees rubbery. She had not noticed either until now.

  She drew in a deep breath of the outdoor air, cold enough to feel fresh even though it was loaded with carbon monoxide.

  Gordon swerved toward his own car. Tash halted. “Just a minute, please. There’s something I must get out of my car first. My tape of the interview with Vivian Playfair. It was too bulky for my handbag, so I put it in the glove compartment . . . Here it is, but . .

  Her voice faded into silence.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Gordon, I’ve remembered. The other thing they took besides my wallet. It was a letter Mrs. Playfair asked me to mail for her. I put it in my bag.”

  “You’re sure it’s missing?”

  “Not only that. I saw it in the man’s hand. A square, white envelope.”

  “Funny they’d take a letter instead of your credit cards,” said Gordon.

  “Very funny.” But Tash did not laugh.

  “Are you frightened?”

  “I believe I am. Now.”

  “Why?”

  “That blank check they took had my name and address printed on it. I wish they didn’t know who I am and where I live.”

  4

  THERE ARE 12.1 million people in the United States who live alone. Tash was one of them.

  She was lucky enough to have the top floor of a house on Water Street, the oldest part of town, where artists and writers now flocked so they could have a river view.

  Her attic floor had once been servants’ quarters. Now the landlord had knocked down partitions, cut one large, modern window in the wall overlooking the river, installed a small kitchen and a smaller bathroom, and called the whole thing a studio.

  After weighing the disadvantages of climbing five flights of stairs against the advantages of a high view, he had generously decided not to charge any more rent for the studio than he did for large apartments on the first and second floors.

  Tash kept her typewriter on the dining table and the dining table by the big window, so she could have the view and room to spread out her papers at the same time.

  This morning her eyes kept wandering from the keyboard to the gulls that flew above the river. Why was it so hard for her to write this silly story about Vivian Playfair?

  Thank heaven there was no rush about a feature story of this sort. Bill would probably hold it over for the Sunday magazine if he thought it worth printing at all, with the Governor insisting that the only interesting bits must be left out. Who wanted to read about apple trees, even if there were five hundred of them?

  Toward noon Tash gathered up the pages she had typed and put them in a manila envelope. The tape of the interview went into the pocket of her suit jacket. She put a topcoat over the jacket and and buttoned it up to her clyn. No pickpocket was going to get that tape. She had a feeling she should hang on to the only proof there was that Vivian Playfair had given her a letter to mail.

  Fortunately, it was one of those sunny, windy April mornings that feel colder than they look. She was glad of the topcoat as she leaned against a solid wall of wind, walking around the corner to the police precinct station house.

  It was a new building, its outside planned by an architect who had allowed his fancy to dwell a little too long on Karnak and Babylon. Inside, he had throttled fancy down to something halfway between clinic and jail.

  A uniformed man directed her to the detective bureau on the third floor. The door was open. As she drew near she heard three male voices earnestly discussing the baseball season.

  She paused in the doorway. Two men were in mufti, one in uniform. They must have seen her standing in the doorway, yet they went on talking as if she wasn’t there, until the telephone rang.

  The man in uniform reached for it.

  “Yeah? Yeah! Yeah . . .”

  He turned to the others. “Got to get along now.”

  After he had passed Tash in the doorway, one of the men in mufti looked at her sternly as though she had kept him waiting.

  “Well? What do you want?”

  The moment she gave her name and the address of the newspaper, he remembered the case and his manner changed.

  “Could you describe these two guys, ma’am?”

  “One was tall and gaunt. Middle-aged. With a cast in one eye. The other was a boy, hardly more than a child. Light hair. Angelic face. Eyes that were not so angelic. They wore T-shirts, black leather jackets, jeans, and sneakers. No hats or caps.”

  Her detective glanced across the room at the other detective.

  “Sound familiar?”

  “Sure does. Halcon and one of his polluelitos.”

  “Al Cone?” said Tash.

  “No, Halcon. The H is silent. It’s Spanish for hawk. He’s a Barlo.”

  “You mean a Barloventan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What else is he?”

  “Just a guy we’ve known a long time.”

  “And what are his polluelitos?”

  That question seemed to embarrass the policeman. “His chicks. Kids who work for him. He’s what they call a chicken hawk. The kid you describe sounds like one they call Freaky.”

  “Why Freaky?”

  “He has some rather freakish pastimes. We don’t have a mug-shot of him, but—Hang on a minute.”

  He went to a filing cabinet and came back with a manila envelope that contained several papers. He riffled through them, picked out one, and flicked it across the desk to Tash. “That him?”

  She looked down at photographs attached to the same sheet of cardboard, one full face, one profile, the same number stenciled on each.

  The profile was no use to her, but the full face showed a cast in one eye and a down-turned mouth that were unmistakable. There had been another face something like that in Scottish history, the face of “gleyed Argyle.” Behind that other crooked mask there had been a highly intelligent mind and a formidable will to power.

  “I think that’s the man,” said Tash. “Though I only saw him for a few seconds.”

  “You were lucky to see him at all. He didn’t expect that. He had the chick there to distract you, so you wouldn’t. If we can arrest him, will you identify him as the man you saw with your wallet in his hand?”

  “I’d have to.”

  “Why does that bother you?”

  “I suppose because it puts so much responsibility on me. It would be so awful if I made a mistake.”

  The detective’s sigh was pu
rposely loud so Tash could hear it.

  “People like you are always griping about crime in the streets. Then, when it strikes, you hesitate to testify—if you’re still alive. There was another case like yours last night. Purse-snatcher knocked a girl down and her head hit the curbstone. She died of a skull fracture in the hospital this morning. That could have happened to you.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Do you? I wonder. Ever seen anyone lying in the street dead?”

  Tash had to admit she hadn’t.

  “Was anything else taken besides your wallet?”

  She opened her lips to say: Yes, there was a letter.

  How could she drag the Governor’s wife into the police investigation of a petty crime? Especially when the Governor’s wife had already denied that such a letter ever existed?

  She shook her head.

  The detective was studying the Band-Aid on her forehead. “Cut all right now?”

  “It’s healing.”

  “Any other injuries?”

  “A few bruises from falling.”

  “If he’d really beaten you up, we would have refunded the thirty-nine dollars you lost. State law. As it is, you can probably take it as a loss on your income tax return. Ask your accountant.”

  As Tash went down the corridor, a male voice floated after her from the still open doorway: “Now, as I was saying about the Orioles . . .”

  She took a taxi to the parking lot where she had left her car last night and then drove to the bank. There she found another established routine that made crime seem commonplace, almost cosy and domesticated.

  “That missing blank check is nothing to worry about. Just go through your check book and write the initial letter of your surname in front of the serial number on each check. Then, if a check of yours should come through without that letter, we’ll know at once that it’s a forgery, and we’ll notify the police.”

  By the time she got to the newspaper office, she was feeling that mixture of relief and recovery that we call convalescence.

  Bill Brewer threw down a bail-point pen and pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.

  “Glad to see you’re all in one piece.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “The AP story last night said you’d been knocked down with bruises and contusions—whatever contusions are. I called the police, and they said you were okay, so I didn’t call you. Sleep well?”

  “Like a top.” She took her typescript out of its envelope and laid it on the desk. “There’s the Playfair story, the printable part.” She pulled the roll of tape out of her pocket. “And there’s the part we can’t print.”

  “What on earth . . .?”

  “I suggest you read the script first.”

  He glanced through it and sighed. “Pretty bland. Tape any better?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Why can’t we use it?”

  “If you listen to it, you’ll understand.”

  “Put it on my machine.”

  Once more Bill assumed his favorite listening posture, leaning back in his swivel chair, hands clasped behind his neck, eyes half-closed.

  Vivian Playfair’s voice came through—clear, colorless, child-like: Will you do me a great kindness and mail this letter for me when you leave?

  And Tash’s own answer: Why, of course.

  “Don’t they have mail collection at Leafy Way?” said Bill.

  “Wait,” said Tash. “More coming.”

  Suddenly Bill sat up. “I’ll be damned! He is going to run for a second term.”

  “But we can’t quote him. There’s something else coming in a minute. Listen.”

  Again, it was Vivian’s voice, clear in the silence: Letter? I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.

  As the sound ended, the tape cut loose from its moorings and flapped like a pennant in the breeze.

  Bill shut off the machine.

  “I suppose she thought your microphone was not sensitive enough to pick up her whisper.”

  “It wasn’t a whisper,” said Tash. “It was the next tone just above a whisper.”

  “Suggesting she knows the sibilance of a whisper can attract as much attention as a shout in a quiet room.”

  “Don’t most people know that?”

  “Only people with some experience of intrigue.”

  “I haven’t told anyone else. Was that right?”

  “Right and necessary. Even though you’ve got the tape to prove it happened, we won’t use the story for two reasons. Betraying a confidence never does a newspaper any good in the long run, and we are supporting Playfair’s candidacy. We don’t want to hurt him through her or any other way. Who was the letter addressed to? Or didn’t you notice?”

  “I didn’t really notice, but one thing happened to catch my eye. It was addressed to a Dr.—not a Mr. or Mrs. or Ms.”

  “When did you mail it?”

  “I didn’t have time to mail it before the pickpocket took it.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t I tell you that the pickpocket took it?”

  “No, you did not. Did you tell the police that?”

  “No, I didn’t. You see, I liked Mrs. Playfair, and I was afraid of getting her into trouble. Of course it must be just coincidence that a pickpocket should take something I had belonging to someone else.”

  “Coincidence?” Bill repeated the word as if it were unfamiliar. “I wonder.”

  “You can’t think my pocket was picked just to get Vivian Playfair’s letter? And that my wallet was stolen just to make me think it was an ordinary theft?”

  “Why not?”

  “Bill, are you serious?”

  “Some people are surprised at the amount of scandal that gets into newspapers. I’m always surprised at the amount of scandal that doesn’t get into newspapers. For every story we print, there are a dozen we can’t or won’t print. I think this is one of them. So let’s send this silly script over to Leafy Way by messenger for Mrs. Playfair’s okay and use it in the Sunday magazine and forget everything else about it.”

  When Tash went to bed that night, she did not get to sleep for a long time. False dawn was leaching darkness out of the sky when her eyes finally closed.

  The telephone woke her.

  She opened her eyes to bright sunshine and a blue sky. The hands of the clock pointed to twelve noon.

  She rolled over to the edge of the bed and scooped the telephone from the bedside table.

  This would be Bill Brewer asking if she had any idea how much longer they would have to wait for an okay on the Playfair story.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Perkins?” She could not place the resonant, baritone voice at once, but it identified itself quickly. “This is Carlos de Miranda.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “The Governor is pleased with your treatment of the interview with Mrs. Playfair. So is she.”

  “I’m glad. Are there any changes?”

  “No, it can be printed as it is, but . . . something else has come up. The Governor would like to see you. He would be most grateful if you could come out to Leafy Way again this afternoon. Is that possible?”

  “Why, yes. Of course.”

  “Would three o’clock be convenient?”

  “Yes, but can’t you give me some idea what this is all about?”

  The moment’s hesitation was almost imperceptible.

  “Perhaps I should. Then you will have a little time to think things over before you come. The Governor’s chief speech writer is ill. If the Governor decides to run for a second term, he must get someone else at once. I’ve been reading your political columns for months. I suggested that you might be able to get a leave of absence from your paper and take on the job. Are you interested?”

  “I’m overwhelmed, but I’ll have to think it over.”

  “Why don’t you talk it over with your editor, Mr. Brewer, now, and then come to see us at three o’clock?”

  “I’ll
do that if Bill Brewer’s available. And thank you.”

  “It is we who shall be in your debt.”

  Most North Americans sound a little foolish talking with old-fashioned ceremony, but the same words spoken with a trace of Spanish accent do not sound foolish at all. Carlos de Miranda would have sounded foolish if he had tried to ape North America’s slang and spurious intimacy between strangers.

  Half an hour later Tash was in Bill’s office.

  “Miranda called me after he talked to you,” said Bill. “He wants me to urge you to take the job.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “It’s your decision, Tash. You do realize you’ll be taking a pay cut? The State can never pay you as much as newspaper syndication.”

  “I know that.” Tash smiled. “This job offer is not a bribe.”

  “No,” said Bill. “It’s true the Governor has just lost a speech writer and is looking for a new one. I checked that with our political reporters.”

  “So you think that the offer may be just what it seems? That I was chosen solely on the basis of my political columns?”

  “And also perhaps on the basis of your visit to Leafy Way. Perhaps you weren’t interviewing Mrs. Playfair. Perhaps Playfair was interviewing you. Perhaps he wanted to see the kind of person you were before he offered you this job. That would explain why Mrs. Playfair, who never gives interviews, suddenly decided to give one, though she really had nothing to say.”

  “You’re assuming she then took advantage of a situation the Governor had created to sneak a letter out of the house through me?”

  “That would explain her being a few minutes late for the interview rather neatly. She stopped on her way to the Florida Room to scribble a note when she wasn’t under the eye of Hilary Truance.”

  “But why would the Governor’s wife have to sneak anything?”

  “When you live in a goldfish bowl there can be all sorts of innocent reasons for something like that. Privacy is like sleep)—something you don’t appreciate until you have to go without it.”

  “So you’ve gone back to the idea that it was just bad luck the letter was intercepted by a pickpocket?”

  “It looks that way now. To think otherwise is to invent an explanation too elaborate for your needs, a practise abhorred by all good scientists. . . . Do you want to take this job, Tash?”