Operation Deathmaker

by Dan J. Marlowe

  And then some bright spark of a kidnapper should finally decide to call the supposedly phony shopping center number.

  At least I hoped so.

  If they didn’t, I was out of touch with no way of rectifying the situation quickly.

  And that didn’t suit my present mood.

  I changed position often enough to keep myself from becoming engraved upon the memory of an idle watcher, but I never moved very far away from the phone booth. And I had more time to think than was good for me. The ruthlessness of the bomb attack was impossible to ignore. I was sure it had been deliberately aimed at me, but why? If the kidnappers thought I had seen them clearly enough at the airport to identify them, why hadn’t they killed me then when they had such an excellent chance?

  Of course the supreme advantage of a bomb for its users is that escape is never a problem.

  It could be that the kidnappers had wanted me out of the way while they dealt with a presumably more pliant Hazel. She was the one who would have to produce the money. But the more I thought about it the more it seemed to me that the situation militated against Hazel’s theory that Melissa had staged or participated in the kidnapping.

  In view of the callousness of the kidnappers, it seemed far more likely that the girl was in real danger.

  I watched a young boy enter the phone booth and dial a number after depositing his dime. I was ready to roust him if his conversation became lengthy, but he concluded it in less than a minute. I moved again, conscious that the sun beating down upon the open area made it uncomfortably warm.

  I wondered about Hazel’s condition in the hospital. The big girl had a rugged constitution, but she had caught a hell of a wallop. The second I was rid of the kidnappers’ call I’d telephone Val Cooper at the hospital to learn what I could about Hazel.

  A stocky man carrying a briefcase that looked much like my own approached the phone booth. He set the case down while he mopped his face with a folded handkerchief, then began to sift through his change. “It’s out of order, friend,” I said quickly. “I just wasted a dime on it myself.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” he said. He picked up his briefcase and walked away.

  My thoughts returned to Valerie Cooper. There was really no reason why I could expect her to continue to do what I had asked of her. She hadn’t had to enlist in the first place, of course. She and Hazel had struck up a much warmer acquaintanceship, and on much shorter notice, than was usual with Hazel. Still, I was going to have to be at my most persuasive with Valerie Cooper. She could do a lot of things for me that I couldn’t do for myself.

  My mind reverted back to the situation at the airport. I could call up only the dimmest of impressions of the two men who had knocked me out with the miniature gas bomb and then kidnapped Melissa. Oddly, the man who had gassed me I could remember least well. The one I had glimpsed over my shoulder pulling Melissa from the car remained a hairy, flat-faced, goon-like presence, with no other supporting details. If I could just confront the murderous bastards again, things would be mighty damn different. Things would be—

  The telephone rang in the glass-enclosed booth.

  I moved toward it swiftly, jammed inside, picked up the receiver, and listened. With my free hand I pulled the door of the booth closed behind me.

  I could hear breathing, and then a faint muttering sound, as though someone were speaking in the same room with the individual who had placed the call. The silence lengthened as the waiting game continued. Only a faint mechanical clicking noise issued occasionally from the phone.

  Abruptly there was a loud throat clearing. “Who-all is this?” a voice demanded. “Who-all answered the phone?”

  I didn’t answer.

  I was trying to catalog the voice.

  It was male, indeterminate in age, and strongly laced with a distinct Southern accent.

  Of course the accent didn’t have to be legitimate.

  “Who—?” the voice began again.

  “This is Drake,” I growled.

  “Drake?” the voice echoed incredulously after a brief, stunned silence. “I don’t see how—”

  “It’s Drake, you cottonmouthed bastard,” I spat into the phone. I had a sudden ray of hope I might be able to end the situation right then. “Hazel Andrews is the one you put into the hospital.”

  The kidnappers could verify that. Would they feel that with the money woman eliminated from the scene they should abandon the whole show?

  But it proved to be a forlorn hope. The Southern-accented voice rallied quickly from what I knew had to be a shock. “Then we’ll deal with you, sah,” the voice went on. The drawl was even more pronounced. “We now considah you the principal negotiatah. You’ll follow the directions we lay out foah you.”

  There was a brief silence when I didn’t respond.

  “Y’all heah me?” Cottonmouth demanded.

  “I hear you.” All the emotional frustration of the past three hours boiled up in me. The faceful of gas; the loss of Melissa; the murderous car bombing; the hospitalization of Hazel. If I ever got to the sonofabitch on the other end of the phone line I’d sure as hell make him a soprano. “Listen, what’s this all about? What’s—”

  “Shut up!” Cottonmouth cut me off. “I said you’ll follow the directions we lay out fah you. ‘Cause if you don’t, we’ll mail you the girl a piece at a time. Y’ understand that, man?”

  There was a vicious undertone to the voice, sounding even more sadistic than the threatened action. “I understand,” I said. “What do you want?”

  “That’s bettah,” Cottonmouth said mockingly. “Where can we reach you again?”

  I felt a grudging admiration for the adaptability of the speaker. His whole game plan had been turned upside down by my survival of the bomb blast, yet here he was making adaptations swiftly while he still pursued his original aim.

  “I changed motels,” I said.

  “Prudently, I’m shuah,” Cottonmouth said dryly. “What motel?”

  “The Miramar,” I replied. “The name is Dewey Elliott.”

  “A very prudent man,” Cottonmouth said after a short interval during which I could picture him writing it down. “We’ll call you shoatly,” he went on. “Don’t go wanderin’ if’n you care what happens to the girl.” His voice turned hard again. “You partic’larly wouldn’t like what happens to her was you to call the police or the FBI.”

  “How do I know you have her?” I countered.

  “You’ll know the next time I talk to you,” Cottonmouth said. He sounded very self-assured. “Get yourself some new wheels, man. Like you’ll be doin’ some travelin’. We’ll call y’all at the Miramah in two houahs.”

  The receiver clicked in my ear.

  I stood in the booth with the phone still in my hand, staring out through the glass at the busy shopping center.

  Cottonmouth would certainly be checking out my story about what had happened to Hazel. And he would have little difficulty in ascertaining that I’d told him the truth. Was there another slight ray of hope in that circumstance? How, for instance, could Cottonmouth reasonably expect me to have access to Hazel’s money to pay off a ransom demand?

  The trouble with such a slight hope was that Cottonmouth had said or done nothing up to this point to indicate that he was a reasonable man.

  A clicking sound on the glass distracted me. A woman outside the booth was rapping on it with a coin. I realized I was standing there trancelike with the receiver still in my hand. I hung it up and left the booth, ignoring the woman’s indignant glare.

  I walked across the macadamized parking lot to the street. I wanted to get back to the Miramar. I needed to set up and get organized. From the way Cottonmouth sounded, he wasn’t going to leave me many loopholes. Any I was able to use were more than likely going to have to be contrived by myself.

  A cab came along in four minutes. My impatience made it feel like fifteen. At the Miramar I was pleased to find that the front desk clerk wasn’t at her station. I had noted pr
eviously that, as in most older motels, the switchboard was set up in a cubbyhole beside the front desk area so the telephone operator and the clerk could cover for each other.

  I beckoned to the switchboard operator. “I’d like to ask a favor of you,” I said when she came out to the desk. I held out my right hand as though to shake hands. When she took it instinctively, I transferred a folded-over twenty dollar bill from my hand to hers. “I’m Mr. Elliott, and I’m in 104. My friend, Mrs. Vernon, is in 105. What I’d like you to do for me is ring both rooms at the same time whenever there’s an incoming call. I’m liable to answer from either room. You know how that is.” I gave the operator an elaborate wink. “Can you do that for me?”

  “Certainly, sir,” the woman said with a hint of a conspiratorial smile.

  “And can you have your relief do the same?”

  “I’ll be glad to, sir.” By this time she had seen the amount on the bill I had handed her.

  “Fine. I’ll count on it. Many thanks.”

  That should plug a hole in the dike, I thought as I walked down the corridor containing room 104. I hadn’t given Cottonmouth my room number, but, knowing my alias, he wouldn’t have any trouble in learning the room number. With the dynamite pipe bomb still fresh in my mind, I didn’t intend to make myself an easy target for him.

  Cottonmouth might find Dewey Elliott listed in room 104, but I was going to do my phone listening from Val Cooper’s—or rather, Catherine Vernon’s—room 105. It was a safety tactic that should at the very least let me find out Cottonmouth’s intentions regarding me. It didn’t make too much sense that he should want to get rid of me now. Who else would be left for him to negotiate with? But none of this whole damn business had made too much sense to this point. The two-room telephone setup was just an insurance policy.

  Inside the room I went straight to the phone. I wanted to find out Hazel’s condition. I intended to have Val Cooper paged at the hospital and obtain the information from her. I had my hand on the phone when I realized I didn’t know to which hospital Hazel had been taken.

  I could call the Viking, make up a story, and find out where she was.

  But I might not have time to make up a story.

  First I had to get set up to deal with Cottonmouth.

  From the way he sounded, any delay in following his instructions would result in Melissa’s having a very bad time. And at the moment I had little leverage. I was the tail waiting to be wagged by the dog.

  I revised my priorities.

  Renting a car at once became my prime concern.

  It presents no problems to most people, but I’m not most people.

  There’s always this little thing about me and the law.

  I learned about it at the same time I learned about girls: in high school. Some people would say the subsequent developments had warped me. I don’t pay any attention to such people. I like what I am.

  The police would be investigating Hazel’s “accident.” Their delving could easily lead to the even more damaging discovery that the mishap was linked to a kidnapping. There was no telling what Hazel might blurt out under questioning while in a dazed or semiconscious condition.

  It was a safe guess that Earl Drake was already a part of the police investigation. If so, it was a question of how long Dewey Elliott could keep from being involved. I certainly couldn’t stand close scrutiny. An uncharacteristically talkative Hazel, confused or sedated, could all but hand me over. She knew more about me than anyone else in the world.

  We’d met quite a few years ago. I was in Hudson, Florida, trying to locate my partner who had disappeared along with the loot from a Phoenix bank job. I ran into Hazel, a healthy, twice-widowed, wealthy redhead who was running a tavern for something to do. We hit it off and had a very nice thing going.

  It ended suddenly when I caught up with the crooked deputy sheriff who had killed my partner while trying to make him divulge where the bank loot was hidden. I tangled with a police roadblock set up to keep me from leaving town. During the resulting shootout a car’s gasoline tank exploded in my face.

  I was in a prison hospital for nearly two years, while a skilled and greedy Pakistani plastic surgeon built me a new face. I left the hospital without legal sanction before the surgeon or anyone else had a chance to view his completed handiwork. Nobody knew what I looked like, and that’s the way it has stayed.

  Except for Hazel.

  After a suitable cooling-off period, I hooked up with her again on her ranch in Ely, Nevada. From that time on we played things by ear. She knew what I was, but she didn’t care. She had even been with me a few times when law and order wasn’t our prime concern.

  But right now there was a car to be rented.

  I snapped open the lid of my makeup kit and burrowed around its bottom. I came up with three current driver’s licenses from the state of Ohio. I maintain them all the time. Ohio is one of the few states in which a license can be renewed annually by mail without the licensee ever having to look a bureaucratic clerk or an inquisitive highway patrolman in the face.

  I dropped the Earl Drake license and one of the others back into the case. The case also contained a brown kraft letter-sized envelope, its flap held in place by a rubber band. It contained my cash reserve, which Hazel aptly termed “flight money.” I added to it the money I’d removed from Hazel’s wallet before I left the Viking Motel, then counted out four thousand dollars, and put it in my pocket. There would be operating expenses in connection with this mission.

  I picked up the phone and asked the front desk to call a taxicab for me. While I was waiting, I looked up rental car agencies in the yellow pages of the phone book. The nearest one was close to where Avenue 64 joined the Pasadena Freeway. I also checked the listings under “Eleetronic Equipment and Supplies.” A discount dealer was located on Figueroa a short distance away.

  I was waiting in the motel lobby when the cab arrived. A problem I’d anticipated arose when I reached the rental car agency. Weekends were a popular time for rental car use. The girl attendant was hesitant in response to my request until I made it plain I’d take anything available.

  An Olds Cutlass was turned in while the girl was still filling out the rental form. She asked if I minded waiting while it was given the usual mechanical checkup and after-use wash. I said I’d skip both in favor of immediate delivery, and moreover I’d sign any waivers she desired. I handed her a bill for her personal use, and the Cutlass became mine in record time.

  I drove directly to the electronics discount store on Figueroa Street. It was plain even from the street that the place specialized in all types of communications equipment. It looked like the parts warehouse for a television and computer manufacturer. The job of maintaining inventory records had to be a major undertaking.

  The clerk who approached me as I wandered around was a tall, bright-eyed, beanpole of a youth. He had tanned, sunken cheeks and a surfer’s sun-bleached hair. “Looking for anything special?” he asked in a high tenor. I was becoming acutely aware of the sound of people’s voices.

  I’d entered the shop with the intention of telling him my wife was receiving crank phone calls, and I wanted to record them to have some physical evidence. This boy looked too intelligent to swallow such a lie. He’d probably refer me to the telephone company. I changed my approach and laid it right on him.

  “I need a good-quality tape recorder with a microphone attachment that hooks up to a telephone and records conversations,” I said bluntly.

  He appeared as unsurprised as a family doctor who’s been told by a high school girl that she fears she’s the victim of VD. “You mean an automatic answering service?” he asked. “A unit that takes messages while you’re out of the office?” He continued right on when I didn’t answer. “No, I can see that’s not what you had in mind. You’re interested in recording phone conversations as they come over the line, correct?”

  “Correct,” I agreed.

  “This way,” he said.

  He l
ed me to a long glass showcase containing three tiers of shelves on which dozens of recorders were on display. They ranged in size from cigarette packs to portable typewriters. On open shelves behind the clerk were even larger models. To one side were intricate-looking, standup console models.

  The clerk smiled when he saw the look on my face while I considered the array. “Yes, we do have rather a complete line,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll find something satisfactory.”

  “I’m sure I would, too, if I knew what I was looking for,” I replied.

  “Well, let’s do a little eliminating,” he said briskly. “Were you thinking of a reel or a cassette type? Battery operated, externally powered, or both? You mentioned good quality. That could be Sony, Panasonic, or Wollensak. Excellent quality could be Tandberg, Uher, or Revox. I assume you’d be interested in the voice-actuated type?”

  “Voice-actuated?”

  “Once connected, a voice-actuated unit starts automatically with any conversation at either end of the line.”

  “Yes, that, surely,” I said. “The conversations won’t be lengthy, so I won’t need a recorder with a long-running tape. I think I’d prefer a type that could be operated both from house current and batteries.”

  “Any particular price range?” the clerk asked. He was examining my clothes without appearing to do so.

  “The important thing is good quality,” I emphasized. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “A cassette model is easier for a beginner to operate,” the clerk said. “And for voice transmittal the quality is good enough.” He reached behind him and picked up a Uher model which he placed on the counter in front of me. “It wouldn’t be true if it were music you were interested in recording. Now watch what I do here.”

  Fifteen instructive minutes later I walked out of the electronics discount store with the best and most compact snare in the communications industry. The unit was no larger than an average-sized cigar box.

  It was going to help me catch a nasty varmint.